Broken Wheat Idli

Broken Wheat is also known as lapsi rava in some parts of India. Its known to be an healthy alternative for those who do not include rice in their diets. We bought broken wheat only because a colleague at office told us about it and we chanced upon it in our local Indian grocery store. What a coincidence! Well, maybe not.. maybe we were meant to make something with it. So we bought it and it stayed in our pantry for a couple of months without being used. It caught my eye today and hence we decided that we would try something that we would generally make with rice..

Given broken wheat is called lapsi rava, we decided that we would follow the rava idli recipe and make idli's (steamed cakes) with these. Hence was born this recipe of broken wheat idli's.

To start with roast the broken wheat and cashew nuts separately. Cook the vegetables. You can use vegetables of your choice but make sure they either chopped fine or grated into the mixture.

Mix all the ingredients together. The ingredients when mixed should form a smooth batter which is ready to be steamed. Leave the batter to rest for a few minutes while preparing the steamer and moulds for cooking.

Scoop the idli batter into greased idli moulds and steam the idlis for approximately 15 minutes or until the idli's are done.

Serve the idli's hot with sambhar, chutney or peanut chutney powder. These idli's can also be eaten as is. Check out the recipes on the site for these accompaniments. The links are on the serving suggestions section after the recipe.

Prep the broken wheat: If you broken wheat is not fine and is large granules like ours, just dry blend them in our mixer for a couple of swirls to make them fine before dry roasting it in a pan till it stars leaving a nice flavour.

Cook the vegetables: Heat oil in a pan. Add the cumin seeds and mustard seeds to the oil. Once the mustard seeds begin to pop add the chopped onion, giniger, green chili, channa dal, asafoetida, curry leaves and stir. Saute till the onion softens and turns translucent. Then add the peas and cook. Once the peas soften, switch off the flame and keep the vegetable mixture aside.

Make the batter: Mix the broken wheat, the cooked vegetables, curd, salt and water to form the batter. Let the batter rest while you prep the steamer.

Steam the idli: Start boiling water in the steamer. Grease the idli moulds and pour a tablespoon or two of batter. Place the moulds into the steamer and steam for around 15 minutes. The idli's are ready to be served.

Notes:

Add grated carrot along with the veggies to make the idlis more colorful.

Check whether the idli's are cooked by piercing them with a fork. If the fork comes clean, they should be ready. This generally takes 12 - 15 minutes.